There are many ways of finishing a glass edge. For example window manufacturers simply sand the sharpness in a technique called "Arrissing". The purpose of this is to make the glass safer to handle and also improve its chances of making it through a tempering process called Toughening.
This does not produce a good looking finish edge, but is suitable because the edge cannot be seen once installed.
However glass used for items such as mirrors, table tops, worktops, balustrades and kitchen splashbacks for example require a smooth machine polished edge as very often these edges are visible after installation.
This edge is achieved by cutting the glass Oversize in relation to its finished dimensions. The amount of extra glass left on is determined by the edge type required.
For example for a polished edge produced by a Straight Line Edger, usually only 1mm or 2mm is added to each edge (giving a total "Cut Size"). This extra glass is ground away using a sequence of varying grades of diamond impregnated wheels and polishing wheels.
This produces an excellent bright finish but does leave sharp square corners.
If the glass is being used in a application where the corner would be exposed, the polishing would be processed on a CNC machine, which is able to produce radius or chamfered corners.
This process is slower than using a Straight Line Edger.
For more information on Straight Line edgers and CNC polishing of glass please see the Glasstops Processing page for further information and images.
Glass Processing
No comments:
Post a Comment